NINTH TALK l63

majority are always ignorant. It is in the nature of
things that this should be so, because the great bulk
of people are • average people. Now I am not
suggesting .that you and I differ in any way from the
average in our faculties, our mental powers, our
devotional powers or anything of that sort. But we
do differ from the average man in this, that we have
this bent of mind which induces us to take up and
study these things. It is our good karma from the
past that we have been attracted by them before, and
been interested, and so we are taking the opportunity
to know more about them. We are different from
the average in that respect, consequently that is the
work that we can do. You, if you have the money, can"
go and buy food and clothing and distribute it to the
poor. Yes. But any one who does not know Theo-
sophy could do that just as well. There is something
of priceless value that one man can do and the other
man cannot do. You can feed the souls of the poor
and the rich alike with your knowledge. Do not run
away with the idea that that is in the least less
practical than the other work. Men often say, " You
talk about food for their souls; you do not quite know
what you are doing, you talk to them about a
quantity €>f things of which you do not really know
very much, but I at least know what I am doing, I
see a tangible result when I give them food. What
is the cause of all the poverty and the suffering ? The
cause of it all is ignorance and selfishness: the